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China warns India of 'reverse sanctions' if Huawei is blocked
- Havoc 7y agoIsn't that just predatory pricing?
- sieabahlpark 7y agoHmm, what a great way to inspire confidence Huawei isn't working with the Chinese government to add spyware to everything...
- OedipusRex 7y ago"Use Huawei's products, which are not controlled by the Chinese government, or the Chinese government will sanction you". The Chinese government is about as subtle as an atom bomb.
- luckylion 7y agoThat's pretty much the policy for any country in the world that sees a domestic company being -in their view- unfairly blocked from doing business in another country. They tell them "if you discriminate against us, we will do the same to you".
- chibg10 7y agoReally? What retaliatory action did the US take on behalf of its tech companies following their blocking in China?
- cdmckay 7y agoWhich companies were blocked by China from operating?
- 5trokerac3 7y agoAny foreign company that isn't willing to create a separate Chinese subsidiary with a Communist Party approved CEO at the helm, and who isn't willing to give up all their IP to said Communist Party.
- sempron64 7y agoGoogle, Facebook, Twitter jump out as examples. These are completely banned from operating due to censorship. Baidu, WeChat, and Weibo are the domestic equivalents, arguably dominant only because of this protectionism. WeChat has outgrown facebook though I think and FB could not win in China now. Corps which sell products in China (as opposed to those who buy manufactured goods that are exported from China) operate only crippled subsidiaries with 51% Chinese ownership for Chinese domestic sales due to their laws.
- luckylion 7y agoThat's not really correct, is it? Google decided not to comply with censorship laws (which I think is a good call), they weren't outright banned. There's a difference between "you must not operate in our country" and "you must not operate in our country without adhering to local laws".
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- msie 7y agoNot China but google Boeing, Canada and Bombardier.
- YinLuck- 7y agoThe US literally sailed a fleet into Tokyo harbor to force Japan to buy American goods. I don't see anything fundamentally different with China threatening a country for refusing to allow its companies to trade.
- Sag0Sag0 7y agoThe US has started wars to protect foreign investment. The history of Latin America comes to mind. Some examples would be Allende, the bay of pigs invasion and Nicaraguan Contras. The fact that the US hasn't retaliated much in the tech industry probably just demonstrates that the industry wasn't firmly enough in bed with the government when China began blocking access to google and facebook.
- chibg10 7y agoReferencing three American incidents from decades ago (which, although I consider Chile and Nicaragua to be among America's darkest FP moments, were all officially -- and mostly corroborated by the historical record -- undertook in the name of national security rather than commercial interests) hardly indicates this sort of tit-for-tat commercial relations between nations is the global norm.
- Sag0Sag0 7y agoThe US's coup in Chile was done precisely to protect US business interests. That's why large companies like Anaconda were so heavily involved in the coup. The thing that all those incidents share in common is that they all started when the nations involved began nationalising or restricting US companies. A more modern example of this sort of behavior might be the original US sanctions on Venezuela in the 2000s.
- luckylion 7y agoThey haven't been blocked in China, they don't operate in China because they don't want to support China's censorship and authoritarian population control.
- chibg10 7y agoThis is just false. Both Google and Facebook have been reported as seeking Chinese government authority to get re-enter the Chinese market this year, and neither Facebook, Google, or a large chunk of the rest of the Western internet is accessible in the mainland due to the Great Firewall.
- luckylion 7y agoAs I said, the Chinese actively censor what they consider harmful content. I don't agree with them on that, but that's their position. If you abide by their laws (that is: censor what they want censored and give them access to user data, I guess), you can operate. The UK blocks The Pirate Bay and various other file sharing sites because they figure those sites don't comply with UK laws. As soon as TPB disables the sharing of copyrighted content and appeals, they'd be unblocked, because it's not a blanket ban. The fact that Google has offices in China, offers services in China and runs conferences in China should show that they aren't blocked as a company. Dragonfly wasn't shut down by China, but by Google after they faced internal push back by employees against supporting Chinese censorship.
- kool_kid1 7y agoIf the technology is great, every country will use it without questioning its source, but Chinese tech has never been so innovative, always copying and pasting with a bit of modifications. If you are forcing a country to use your technology, then there's something wrong.
- addicted 7y agoI believe this is incorrect in this case. Huawei is ahead of competitors in the 5G space.
- ishanjain28 7y agoWay, waaaaay ahead
- HashHishBang 7y agoConsidering the sheer volume of mobile devices in asia, and China in particular, this wouldn't surprise me. However, I was under the impression that "5g" doesn't actually mean anything. As in there is no technical definition or standard that Huawei could be ahead of. Are we just talking about general mobile technologies or have things changed wrt 5G?
- cesarb 7y ago> However, I was under the impression that "5g" doesn't actually mean anything. As in there is no technical definition or standard that Huawei could be ahead of. Are we just talking about general mobile technologies or have things changed wrt 5G? I believe most people mean 5G NR (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G_NR https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G_NR) when they talk about 5G, the same way 4G usually means LTE.
- HashHishBang 7y agoAh, I didn't know this was a thing. Thanks mate.
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- olliej 7y agoAs opposed to the usual one where China's government routinely demands all foreign companies transfer ownership, IP, and technology to China, then once the Chinese companies have all of that decide that the foreign company is "breaking the law" and evicts them from the country. Because only china is allowed to block foreign companies, if other countries do it then it's unfair.
- AgloeDreams 7y agoLike that shiny new battery factory Tesla is building in Shanghai that will produce the number one US market advantage in EV cars?
- scohesc 7y agoThen China will steal their IP from the factory in China and kick Tesla out of China so China's own EV Battery facilities can reap what Tesla sowed.
- aianus 7y agoWould the factory be in Shanghai if it wasn't for Chinese protectionism? Or is that why they built it there?
- zolosa 7y agoThe factory is in China because that's where the demand is and it's far more cost effective than exporting it from somewhere else.
- bluGill 7y agoI think China makes enough batteries already that there isn't a big worry about them stealing any IP.
- wolco 7y agoNot sure why Telsa would want the battery design copied. Has anyone ever gotten to the bottom of this crazy outsourcing of ip. Is it strictly money related?
- anmatapp 7y agoSo basically, the big companies own the government in their county.
- ChuckNorris89 7y agoI remember the quote from the RoboCop movie of the 80s when the CEO of OCP said: "We practically are the government". That movie was ahead of its time.
- FussyZeus 7y agoIn the specific case of China its more like the Government owns the big companies. But yes, basically.
- elorant 7y agoIn this particular case I think it's the other way around. The government owns the company.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoThere has long been suspicion that Huawei is actually owned and controlled by the PLA. Not that it really makes much difference even if that were true (China would protect it even if it were a completely private enterprise).
- jorblumesea 7y agoOther way around. Many large corporations are founded by CCP members and receive massive government funding. In China at least the business and party elite are one and the same.
- Sag0Sag0 7y agoSo it's like the US.
- stunt 7y agoGovernments typically protect their big players and it makes sense. You don’t expect U.S. don’t do anything if Asia or EU put sanctions on Apple or Microsoft.
- ycombonator 7y ago华为 'hua-wei' means 'Serve China'
- wyldfire 7y ago"It's a cookbook, it's a cookbook!"
- schoen 7y agoI don't speak Chinese, but it doesn't seem from Wiktionary like 为 has the meaning 'serve' in its sense of 'obey, assist'. Couldn't it also be something like 'Chinese-doing'? That seems more similar to what Wikipedia says about the name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Name
- tekkk 7y agoTit-for-tat. From my scarce knowledge of game-theory and world-politics it is generally accepted as the default move in these types of situations. But well, if India sees Huawei as security threat, shouldn't they have a quite good justification for blocking them? It's not that they are outright punishing Huawei for just existing, but that there is, in their opinion, a real cause for them to fear Huawei of spying their networks behalf of Chinese government? Although the real reason would be a lot more nuanced as usual with politics. But to me it seems a bit unfair. Russia and China (and others, sure) have effectively blocked many foreign companies in different sectors in their respective countries because of security reasons, so why India isn't allowed to do the same thing?
- jrhurst 7y agoHonestly things like phones and their networks should be built and maintained in their home nations
- alexis_fr 7y agoand email hosting. Email hosting is a big deal.
- erikpukinskis 7y agoWorks well on games. Only problem is trade isn’t a game. Or, to put it another way, you have no idea when your opponent will stop playing this game and start playing another one.
- chillacy 7y agoI think "game theory" applies to more situations than the name might imply..
- __s 7y agoGame theory is about decision making. If you reject game theory, you reject rational decision making being possible. Note that game theory is still useful in the context of making good decisions against irrational decision makers. Your "put another way" is merely pointing out that often in real world scenarios the game's rules are often part of the unknown information Everything involving decisions is a game. Trade is a game
- yumraj 7y agoThere are very few Indian companies operating in China anyway. India should block Huawei now even more. Just like in the case with US, China has more to lose that India. Edit: in case there was any confusion, when I said "US" above I was referring to US-China not US-India.
- azifali 7y agoThere's plenty of capital coming from China into India and while China wouldn't want to restrict that, it is one area where the Chinese government might flex its muscles.
- sremani 7y agoIndia has $60 billion trade surplus with US it is not same relationship when with China, India has $60 billion deficit. India is not that important for US, it is useful, Yes. Strategically important? Absolutely NOT! Edit: To Provide Context, there is low scale tit-for-tat going between US and India regarding trade. https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/15/economy/india-tariffs-us-trump/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/15/economy/india-tariffs-us-trum...
- wrong_variable 7y agoYou are getting downvoted since Indians are not interested in hearing the truth.
- youeseh 7y agoThe downvotes may be for being off-topic. The thread is discussing the China-India relationship and not so much the India-US relationship.
- sremani 7y ago>> Just like in the case of US, China has more to lose that India. Could be or not, I interpreted the OP as he is commenting how US is losing a trade disagreement with India. Again, on second read it was ambiguous enough. It was not an intentional tangent.
- espeed 7y agoChina has a history of pegging its currency to the US dollar. Is there precedent for pegging tariffs to the yuan?
- iKevinShah 7y agoWell the US government labelled China a "Currency Manipulator" a couple of days back. Doesnt mean much, but it will add to the trade war between the two
- hourislate 7y agoBuying 5G technology from a benign country like Finland or Sweden seems like a good strategy. Both these countries have no aspiration for world domination and have track records of honest business dealings. I don't think either Ericson or Nokia has ever been accused or guilty of spying or stealing technology.
- ETHisso2017 7y agoThey also have cooperated with GCHQ and the NSA.
- malandrew 7y agoIt's better to risk being spied on by a country where you have lots of expats working in their tech industry. Having those expats greatly increases the likelihood of someone whistleblowing in your country's favor and someone objecting to abuses in your country's favor. There are thousands upon thousands of first and second generation Indians working in the US and UK tech industries. There are hardly any working in the Chinese tech industry.
- nullwasamistake 7y agoPersonally I think "the devil you know" mentality is better when considering that any Telecom tech could be compromised. Yeah everybody is probably spying, so you should get your gear from your strongest allies. Would you rather have a friend or an enemy spying on you? That appears to be the only options now that technology has thoroughly penetrated every day life. Another point not mentioned enough is that societies with free press are far more likely to find and report exploits/backdoors. In a country like the US you see this a lot. There's many cases of security researchers reporting possible government funded exploits against their own government. In a place like China reporting something like that would probably mean you disappear
- robocat 7y agoSo India just needs to pre-ask for "reverse-reverse-sanctions" from the US: Hey Mr States, we'll not use Huawei like you asked us, if you'll give us extra XXXX access to your country.
- alexis_fr 7y agoMore like: “Hey India, if you don’t avoid Huawei with us, you’ll have even bigger sanctions than if you follow Chinese advice. And won’t get spied upon by the Chinese.”
- guidedlight 7y agoThe US needs strong developing countries to manufacture its stuff. Vietnam is still pretty small. India has more familiar industrial relations and government model.
- baybal2 7y agoI believe the default action for Huawei for such block would actually be purposefully enact the ban on itself: Stop all sales including spare parts, revoke signing keys, block IPs of cell towers and cloud control panels from that country, stop tech support, and look how soon they will change their musik
- paganel 7y agoIn an ideal world one should not be spied on by anyone else, but in this particular case I think India would be more ok (so to speak) of being spied on by the US than by China, the reason being that India has an ongoing and still open border dispute with China, while its relations with the US are a little more benign. Granted, I'm not from India and I've never visited the country, maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can correct me if I'm wrong.
- Guthur 7y agoYou'd need to have been living on a different planet to think that the US is benign. Relatively benign to their own citizens but far and away the most globally antagonistic country over the last 50 years. The list of wars and interventions, arms dealing, extradition etc would be far beyond anything China has done. No government is beyond over stepping it's boundaries but unfortunately non US citizens do not have a constitution to protect them from the US government. China is threatening the US global trade dominance and the US is reacting in exactly the same way incumbents usually do and unfortunately trade wars between major powers have been historical quite bloody.
- adventured 7y ago> The list of wars and interventions, arms dealing, extradition etc would be far beyond anything China has done. There's good reason to be skeptical of your claim. The good the US has done is also radically beyond any good that China has done. Just the lives that the US will save in Africa, tens of millions of lives over time, is beyond anything any other nation in world history has ever done. During the US lead in the post WW2 era, liberal democracy has flourished around the world under the direct protection and encouragement of the US. That includes nations throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Compare 1935 (or 1850, 1900, 1920, etc) to 2015 when it comes to government systems around the world, violence rates, major armed conflicts, poverty, famine, life expectancy, real incomes, trade, etc. The world has never been better off than it has with the US as a superpower, not even remotely close. Last time I checked, for 70 years the US has overwhelmingly acted as a defender of liberal democracies, not an antagonist. It conflicts with nations such as Iran (theocracy), Cuba (dictatorship), the Soviet Union (authoritarian party dictatorship), Iraq (dictatorship), Venezuela (dictatorship), North Korea (dictatorship), Russia (dictatorship). Or is the US currently trying to topple Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Canada, Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Britain, France, Portugal, et al? Did I miss something? Just the good that the US did for Germany, Japan and South Korea in the post WW2 era alone is more than any other nation has done for the world in the past century. What does the world look like if China is the sole superpower by contrast? They're going to protect Taiwan's democracy? They're going to set Hong Kong free to become an independent democracy? Right. China has been a prolific arms dealer for a very long time. The difference between the US and China on arms dealing is per unit cost and who they primarily sell to. Most of the US arms dealing goes to liberal democracies in fact and involves very expensive hardware like the F35 or F16. China exports arms to at least 53 countries and is the world's largest seller of armed military drones; their largest drone clients are all low human rights countries. By contrast the US sells almost zero armed drones to foreign nations. The 25 nations list of buyers of US arms includes: Norway, UK, Italy, Greece, Canada, Germany, Mexico, Israel, India, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia. What's the problem exactly with selling democracies arms to defend themselves? I also don't believe the US should be selling arms to Saudi Arabia, that's a black mark the US deserves credit for. When it comes to war, the Third Indochina War involved several hundred thousand dead between Vietnam and China (including soldiers and civilians). That's a war that China started with Vietnam. China has been in a constant state of long-term conflict with nearly all of its neighbors over territory. That includes India, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Russia, Malaysia and the Philippines. All of China's neighbors are afraid of it, save for North Korea. China has persistently aided and propped up North Korea, a nuclear armed dictatorship with zero human rights that has been constantly threatening to genocide South Korea for 50 years. In the last 50 years China completed its cultural eradication of Tibet, a process that took decades. China quasi peacefully (there was never a choice actually) annexed Hong Kong and has increasingly stripped it of independence and human rights. That process is accelerating right now. China constantly threatens to use its military to invade Taiwan and regularly takes dramatic actions to keep Taiwan isolated and terrified. They go so far as to threaten foreign nations that interact with Taiwan's leaders at all, and threaten foreign corporations for even mentioning that Taiwan does not belong to China. China just recently used military force to annex territory the size of France from their neighbors. The US using its superpower military to annex large swaths of territory from its neighbors is unthinkable in the post WW2 era. The US has maintained the longest unarmed border in the world with Canada, precisely because Canada doesn't fear a US effort to annex its territory. None of China's neighbors feel that way, for obvious reasons.
- rdtsc 7y agoChina has a good relationship with Pakistan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Pakistan_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Pakistan_relatio... I wonder how that plays into it, given the recent events in Kashimir: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/india-revokes-kashmir-special-status-latest-updates-190806134011673.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/india-revokes-kashmir... If I had to guess these sanctions and warnings are never purely technological and are mostly political.
- eximius 7y agoI don't know anything about this, but it seems quite surprising, given China's record of 'disappearing' millions of Muslims (and other citizens) right next door to Pakistan
- yumraj 7y agoChina-Pak friendship is driven simply by their mutual enmity of India. Basically, enemy of my enemy is my friend.
- hangonhn 7y agoPakistan provides a very strategic route to the Persian Gulf for the Chinese. Even without the India-China rivalry (I hate using this term though because the relationship is quite a bit more complex than a simple rivalry), I think Pakistan would still be a valuable ally to the Chinese. During China's period of isolation, Pakistan also served as a diplomatic corridor to the other countries. Prior to the Nixon visit, China and the US met via Pakistan.
- hangonhn 7y agoPeople from the outside has a tendency to over estimate the unity of other groups. For a long time, the first world nations thought all the Communist countries were buddies but China had border wars with both the USSR and Vietnam. In the Islamic world, Muslim nations fought each other all the time as they still do today. In the Christian realms, the Crusades started with Western Christians sacking Constantinople and the wars of religion between the Catholics and Protestants were pretty brutal. France was at one point allied with the Turks during the period of the "Italian Wars". It tends to be that people think first of their own welfare and then maybe of their allegiance to the groups they belong to.
- dzonga 7y agoon a serious note. what are the chances of this whole debacle thing causing a full scale warfare ? given the animosity between the 2 neighboring countries India and China. then you factor in US backing India. Then add Russia + china in the mix. This whole sanction and tariff thing can't continue without one side completely asserting dominance over the other. & US will not leave it's position willingly.
- paxys 7y ago> warning there could be consequences for Indian firms operating in China What Indian firms even operate in China? What firms from any country other than China have a meaningful presence there? I guess the threat is meaningful if you include firms doing any business in China, but by restricting exports or imposing tariffs they are shooting themselves in the foot as well.
- baybal2 7y agoI see people already noticing the timing. In other news: https://www.dawn.com/news/1498428/china-says-india-move-on-kashmir-violates-its-territorial-sovereignty https://www.dawn.com/news/1498428/china-says-india-move-on-k...
- HashThis 7y agoHey India, you are going to have to buy our spy gear. -China
- chx 7y ago> Huawei has carried out operations in India for a long time, and has made contributions to the development of Indian society and the economy that is clear to all, And how is this relevant to backdoors? Just wow.
- naruvimama 7y agoAs an Indian I personally root for Huawei. If not for any other reason that Ericsson (70% just a decade ago) and co have had a monopoly for far too long. The only jobs that Ericsson brings to India are low end back office jobs and at the most billing software. Even though it could have been one of their largest growth markets. This could be a good opportunity to get them/Huawei to setup more cutting edge R&D (especially PHY layer), co-development and manufacturing. India should hand out some Chinese medicine to the Chinese. High tech is a chicken and egg problem, India has all the ingredients, but apparently free market doesn't work when monopolies are involved.